


You Slice the Ginger

by EighthOfHisName



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-04-12
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:27:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23615200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EighthOfHisName/pseuds/EighthOfHisName
Summary: "I'll make you Lomo Saltado. We will make it together."Will reminisces over a familiar meal. He's alone in the kitchen this time around.
Relationships: Will Graham & Hannibal Lecter, Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Kudos: 14





	You Slice the Ginger

Will had woken up in a motel room. Alone. His eyes stung from the salt he’d soaked in and every muscle in his body felt rusted together. Eventually everything came into focus. He remembered. He remembered The Fall, the blood, the way  **Hannibal Lecter** had clung to him through it all until it was impossible to hold on any longer.

... He’d been stabbed.

A trembling hand reached up to graze over the wounds, which throbbed and leaked. He was stitched back together in neat little rows. Meticulous, really. Soiled gauze and discarded gloves filled the bin to the left of the scuffed up door.

No doubt it had been  **him** .

He tried to have everything go back to normal, but how could it? After everything he had done, all of the wounds he had inflicted with his lashing out, after his… Confession. The confession he had given to both the  **doctor** and himself above the corpse of The Dragon. Molly didn’t want to see him, Walter watched him out the living room window as he made his walk back up the drive way to his taxi with what little he could carry. There hadn’t been proof of what he had done, but everyone knew to various degrees. Will tried to deny it to even himself for a week or two, using alcohol like novocaine. It only worked for a short while; the nights in his lonely apartment were quiet. Too quiet. All he had in those hollow hours were the spins, nausea, and… His memories 

Memories of that night. The memory of the blood and the flesh and the smile he’d been offered and offered in return in spite of the fact that he was at his darkest moment, in his most primal state. The inner workings of his soul were put on full display and when he had said it was beautiful,  **Hannibal** had agreed;  **he** had embraced him entirely.  **He** was the only one who really knew him. The agency was taking decent care of him financially, considering he’d taken down The Great Red Dragon and supposedly been abducted and attacked by  **Hannibal the Cannibal** . Jack didn’t want him back at work. Not for a while at least, he had said; it wouldn’t be a good look for any of them. His social life was basically non-existent, and the few people that did want to speak to him could see that he was different. He was empty. He had been changed. Broken. Reborn.

There was no bringing this teacup back together.

Instead of pacing lines into the carpet, he cooked. Even when he wasn’t hungry, he cooked. Leftover containers filled his dingy little refrigerator, yet he continued.  **Hannibal** had ruined him;  **he** had torn apart everything he had put together, everything he had achieved. It was gone. All he had now were the recipes that reminded him of the last person he should have on his mind.

He supposed he missed  **him** because he was all he had left. That realization alone almost hurt just as much as the solitude.

Days turned into weeks, and weeks turned into months. Will neglected his wounds to the point of danger; it was consuming depression at best, self-flagellation at worst. The scabs that formed were picked and his stitches–the stitches  **he** had woven into him–were mistreated. Graham would never admit it to himself, but deep down he knew that he did what he did so that his wounds would scar. They were painful reminders. Painful, beautiful reminders of the only time in his goddamn life that he truly felt alive; complete. To let them fade would be to let the memory fade and as much as Will hated it, that memory was the only thing that could bring him peace these days.

**_“I’ll make you lomo saltado..”_ **

Will sliced through the pork on his cutting board with practiced precision, watching his hand move in long, smooth strokes. He imagined  **his** hands in place of his own, the smooth skin stretched over them, the lean muscle beneath, clinging to bone, which rocked and hummed like oil-slicked hinges with every calculated movement they made. It was obsessive, addictive. His mind felt forever dehydrated, searching for another drop of a memory; any memory that brandished a reflection of connection they had shared. Before  **he** left. Before  **he** disappeared.

**_“We will make it together.”_ **

Oil popped and sizzled in protest as the meat was laid out in the pan. Bell peppers were next, cut into neat lines and set aside. After that came the garlic. Then the onions. The knife rocked and swayed like a mantra; a physical reassurance that Will gave himself, over and over.

**_“You slice the ginger.”_ **

Will took a long drink off of his moscato–straight out of the bottle–letting the bitterness linger in his mouth. He stared hard at the bottle, remembering the drinks they had shared, the dinners they had paired it with. The way that  **Hannibal** had smiled at him over the rim of  **his** crystal glass. His fingers wound around the neck of it, squeezing tightly as if he pressed hard enough it would die, along with the memories tied to it. It didn’t work.

The bottle shattered against the thin wall that separated his apartment from his neighbor’s.

The potatoes followed. Then the pan. Before he knew it all of his utensils were strewn across the kitchen. His ingredients rolled atop the counter, into the sink, onto the tile, into the dish rack. A few cups rattled off– Molly’s cups. She had given them to him upon asking him to leave. Flowery, intricate, fragile things. She had bought them secondhand. A pair of teacups threatened to flee. They slipped through Will’s fingers and met the floor with a crash. He stared at them for a long while, encased in its memory.  **_Their_ ** memory. Salty tears breached his blue eyes and leaked down his face. They tasted like the ocean.

With trembling hands Will finished slicing the ginger for a meal that was not meant to be eaten.


End file.
